What happened
Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred Monday in the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari to a criminal defendant, but wrote separately to say the trial court was wrong to believe federal judges cannot define reasonable doubt for a jury.
The petition in Davenport v. United States was denied because it was untimely and the petitioner’s counsel offered no explanation for the delay, Sotomayor wrote. But she said the case still warranted a statement because of what the district court told the defendant when rejecting a requested jury instruction.
The petitioner was charged, in relevant part, with murder in aid of racketeering, and the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed murder under North Carolina law. He asked the district court to give a North Carolina template instruction explaining that, for the murder elements, proof beyond a reasonable doubt meant proof that fully satisfied or entirely convinced jurors of guilt.
The district court refused after saying federal courts were specifically prohibited from defining reasonable doubt and that the federal rule barred a court from defining it beyond the instructions already given. Sotomayor said that was incorrect: “Federal courts are not prohibited from defining reasonable doubt for the jury.”
Citing Victor v. Nebraska and Fourth Circuit precedent, Sotomayor said trial judges are not required to define reasonable doubt as a matter of course, but they have discretion to do so. The district court therefore should have recognized that it could decide whether to grant the requested instruction rather than treating the request as categorically forbidden.
The statement also stressed that defining reasonable doubt can be risky. Sotomayor noted that, in this case, the district court worried that giving a state-law murder instruction but no comparable instruction on other parts of the federal offense could suggest different burdens for different elements.
Still, Sotomayor wrote that some circumstances may justify an explanation, including when a party misstates the standard or when jurors ask for guidance. She said careful case-by-case consideration helps preserve the reasonable-doubt standard’s central role in criminal procedure.